


Reasons to Worry

by TheGreatAndPowerfulTrixie



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: A Completely Done Logan, A Patton That Just Wants Everyone’s to Stay Safe, Anxious Roman, Anxious Virgil, Breaking the Fourth Wall, DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND ANY RELATIONSHIP TAG IN THIS FANDOM, Everyone is so out of character I could laugh, FLIPPIN’ HARD MY DUDE, Gen, IVE ONLY EVER POSTED ONE FANFICTION ON THIS SITE HELP, Orphan Roman, Orphan Roman That Has Been Fostered by Thomas Sandersヽ(°□°ヽ), ahhhh, and more to come - Freeform, being a writer sucks, but only just a little, but writing it made me happy so maybe it might make you happy too, everyone deserves fluff every once in a while, how do tag, i don’t really care tho, i havent even gotten to the scene that i originally started writing this for, logan knowing more about mlp than he should, no probably not, okay so this story hasn’t so much potential for angst and usually i write angst but..., there are still like 25 words of angst tho, this wasn’t supposed to be a one-shot but i got so bored i decided to post it before i finished, this writing probably sucks, will anybody read this?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 22:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17733893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatAndPowerfulTrixie/pseuds/TheGreatAndPowerfulTrixie
Summary: Roman is a worried mess wearing Iron Man pajama pants, Virgil just really, really doesn’t want Thomas’ new kid to hate him or be eaten by a bear, Logan is so done with Virgil and knows more about My Little Pony than he should, and Patton is just along for the ride.Thomas is doomed.





	1. Chapter 1

“Virgil, Logan, Patton, Virgil, Logan, Patton, Virgil--oh, what does Patton look like again? He isn’t the edgy one, is he? Is edgy a mean word to use, what if they hate me?! I can’t remember their names, they’re going to hate me!”

Roman buried his head in his hands, peeking up at Thomas with pleading eyes. “Maybe we can call this whole ‘family reunion’ off? Or--or--I don’t want you to not be able to see them. Maybe I can just hole up in my bedroom when they’re here. When you see me again I will have rotted away to nothing more than a skeleton!”

Swooning, Roman fell against the couch with a puff of air. The sun pierced his eyes like a sharp, gleaming sword, and he had to sit back up, shielding his eyes. "Ugh. I'm doomed."

“Roman, just--chill out, bud. You’ll be fine. I doubt any of them will remember your names--I mean, name, either.” Thomas awkwardly patted his head and got up. “I bet Logan will call you Rome and then deny it when it’s pointed out--by Virgil, I’ll bet seven dollars on _that_.”

Roman pulled his legs up onto the couch and watched Thomas wander around the room. Listing to the messier side of the room and beginning to tidy it, Thomas reminded Roman of a sinking ship. Thomas wasn’t usually, er-- _neat_ , shall we say?--and that was at the best of times. It must be the nerves getting to him, but Thomas knew his nephews for thirteen whole years, like the back of his hand--or, well, _better_ than the back of his hand, really--and shouldn’t get nervous, so Roman must be getting to him, and--oh, he was such a screw-up!

Roman flopped back onto the couch, this time face-first. He screamed, though it was muffled by the pillow he buried his face in.

“You’ll be fine,” Thomas said in a soothing, mellow tone. He turned to look at Roman with a wide grin, shafts of light raining down on him. It illuminated his hair like a halo; Roman had to squint to see past the light. “At the very least, Patton won’t know yours. He’s very forgetful, you know.”

“Really?” Roman perked up, staring at Thomas hopefully. Pulling his legs up, he hugged the pillow tightly.

“Well, yeah. I have half a mind to think the kid’s got ADHD, but”--Thomas furrowed his brows and looked up at the ceiling--“then again, I don’t know much about--”

“No, no, not that, silly. I mean do you really think that they won’t know my name?”

“Ha, nah. You have nothing to worry about, buddy. It’s not like I’m gonna return you to the system if you mix them up.” Thomas ruffled his hair and then headed downstairs, saying something about only having a couple of hours until they got here on the plane, and that Joan and Talyn were going to bring them over.

"Yeah..." Roman echoed quietly, muscles untensing. With a sigh, he let his head fall against the back of the couch. His eyes traced the fan spinning above him lazily. "It's not like you're going to return me to the system or anything..."

Then his head snapped up.

“Wait!” he shrieked down to Thomas, who groaned. “If they get my name wrong, do I have to correct them?! How am I supposed to do that?! I'm doomed, Thomas! _Doomed_ , I tell ya!"

"Oh, shut up!" With a slam, the side door opened, and Thomas had to yell to be heard. "How many times do I have to tell you you'll be fine?!"

"But _Thomas_ ," Roman whined.

\---

“Are we _sure_ we have to meet Thomas’ kid? Can I skip out and hang out with Joan and Talyn the entire time? Maybe I can see Thomas later. Or like, not at all; I'm sure Thomas would understand.”

Logan groaned, snapping his book shut, and turned to glare at Virgil. “Oh my God, I’ve had to listen to you _fret_ for the _entire plane flight_. I bet Patton you wouldn’t, and _now_ look what you’ve done.”

Patton said, "Pay up!” from the row behind them. Logan sighed, and handed him the dollar he’d been using as a bookmark. Virgil usually wasn't involved in all the betting his family did--honestly, even Talyn and Thomas were in on it--and so usually they all were on him. Or, more specifically, just how much he would worry about any particular thing. This really shouldn't come as a surprise, but he never learned.

Virgil's head fell against the plane. He could hear the plane's engine humming, and, glancing out of the corner of his eyes, he was able to see out the window. The view was kind of disappointing, only a thick layer of clouds below them. He tilted his head slightly so he could see Logan.

“Okay, but listen, I’ve got new worries this time,” he said. (Patton whispered, "New worries for the rest of your days," but no one paid much attention to him.)

“Really?”

Virgil nodded.

“Really,” Logan repeated flatly, giving him an unimpressed look over his glasses.

Virgil scowled and nodded.

“Reeeeally?” Patton asked, eyes narrowed. He didn't sound very disbelieving, though; Virgil thought that he might just be copying Logan. (For what reason though, Virgil didn't know.)

He nodded again, a little less sure this time.

“ _Really?_ ” Logan asked.

“Yes! I have!” Virgil punched Logan in the arm.

Logan still wasn’t convinced, and crossed his arms. “Really? You have something other than a) Thomas suddenly started hating us, and we’re going to be shipped off to Wakanda where panthers will eat us, b) Joan and Talyn will get in a car crash and our parent will strand us at the airport because they have suddenly started hating us, c) Thomas doesn’t actually exist and we’ll drive all the way up to the mountains, only to realize we’ll freeze and _die_ , d) The plane is going to crash, e) _Thomas_ suddenly started hating us, and we’re going to be shipped off to Mongolia, where we’ll be eaten alive by bears, f) _We don’t exist._ ”

Logan gave Virgil a crazy look, like, _Do you see now? Do you see now how stupid you’ve been?_

“g) Rome will turn out to be a bear-- _what is with you and bears?!_ \--and he’ll eat us alive--are you starting to hear how ridiculous you sound? Thomas isn't going to adopt a bear!--h) There’ll be a landslide, i) There’ll be an avalanche, j) We’ll walk through poison joke like in _My Little Pony_ , season 01, episode 09, _Bridle Gossip_ , and you’ll get a deep voice like Fluttershy and none of us will ever let you live it down--which, by the way, if that did happen, not that it ever would, then that is very true--k) Thomas suddenly started hating us, and we’re going to be shipped off to _Iran_ , l) We’ll be stuck in Colorado because our parents forgot about us, m) There was literally one where you slid down in your seat and wailed _We’re all gonna die!!_ but I’m not sure if that counts or not. That is not nearly all of them, but you were simply speaking too fast for me to write them down. You’re killing me, Smalls. Metaphorically speaking.

“Oh, and you worried that you wouldn’t remember Rome’s name, but that is utterly ridiculous. I doubt he’s worried about it nearly as much as you, _moron_.” Logan lightly rapped the side of Virgil’s head, giving him a fond smile.

“So _now_ do you think that you have something new to worry about?” Patton asked, craning his neck to see Virgil. He was biting his lip, looking eagerly from Logan to Virgil, who could only think that something was going on.

“Er...yes, actually. I think. I’m only pretty sure. What was g) again?”

Logan looked like he wanted to rip something. Giving Virgil the most frustrated look, he said, “I have no idea.”

“Okay, well, yes, I _do_ have something to worry about. Something that I haven’t already mentioned.”

Patton let out an indignant cry, disrupting some passengers, and slammed the dollar bill back into Logan’s waiting palm. Logan looked very pleased with himself, and adjusted his glasses before returning to his book.

“Wait.” Virgil looked between them. “Wait. _Waaaait_. Wait a second. Is that the whole reason you wanted to know? Really?”

He never did learn.

“Really.”

“I literally hate both of you so much right now.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course you do,” Patton said, waving his hand dismissively. “Pfff. Okay, so what were you worrying about then? If it wasn’t something to do with the Dark Lord or whatever.”

“What?” Logan asked. He looked up from his book to give Patton a confused look, frowning. “There was _nothing_ to do with a Dark Lord. And don’t encourage him.”

“No, there wasn’t anything about a Dark Lord. That’s a good idea, though,” Virgil said, sticking his tongue out at Logan, who, foregoing dignity, stuck his out back. “I’m just worried that Roman was going to hate me.”

There was a beat.

A pause.

Logan cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief that he pulled out of a pocket. It squeaked loudly. Patton eyed his own owlish glasses, looking for the odd speck of dirt. A flight attendant came by with a food cart and asked if any of them wanted something to eat or drink, but Patton waved them off with a “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Half a minute later, Logan’s finally finished cleaning his glasses. Slipping the handkerchief back into his pocket and putting his glasses back on, he said, “Oh. That’s it?”

He sounded rather surprised.

“Yeah?" Virgil frowned, raising an eyebrow. "What did you expect me to do, go on some kind of a tangent?”

Patton and Logan exchanged looks, Patton wincing a little and making a so-and-so motion with his hand.

“I mean,” Patton said with a delicate tone, “well…”

Patton slowly leaned back in his seat until Virgil couldn’t see him. Blowing his bangs out of his eyes with a huff, Virgil focused on Logan, who took a deep breath before beginning to speak.

“Okay, so you’ve had--well, let’s say thirty, as an estimation. (And by the way, if there were thirty, I’d have only listed just under half of them twenty or so paragraphs before, since the last letter of the alphabet I listed was _n_ , and that’s the fourteenth letter.” Virgil had no idea how Logan got all this, exchanging confused looks with Patton, who simply shrugged before returning his gaze to Logan. "Fourteen out of thirty is just under half--what did I tell you?--but more specifically would be around …… forty...five percent?? Okay, anyway.)

“So thirty different reasons to worry, which you would divide…” Logan glanced at his watch, taking a few seconds to calculate. “Divide ninety-six minutes by thirty. So..about...three point--two? Two--” Logan cut himself off and turned to face Virgil. “For every single reason to worry, you’d have about three minutes and twelve seconds. About. Patton, do you want to pull up a calculator and check?”

“Oh! Okay!” Patton pulled his phone out of his pocket and waited for Logan to speak, biting his tongue, while Virgil just gaped at Logan, having just now realized that Logan’s both appreciation and affinity for math knew almost no bounds.

“Er … what was it again?”

“Ninety-six divided by thirty, I believe, Patton.”

“M’kay. Thanks. Now just hold on a second.”

“Oh…” Virgil trailed off, wrapping his arms around himself protectively. “I didn’t realize I was doing that. It must have been pretty annoying.” He hesitated, and for a second Logan thought he was going to apologize. Then a wicked grin broke out on his face. “Sucks for you,” he said instead.

“Shut up,” Logan grumbled, opening up to a random place in his book and placing it on his head. He needed to block out the stupidity _somehow_. “He’s not going to hate you, anyhow.”

“What’s that?” Virgil bit out. “I couldn’t hear you because your voice is muffled by that goddamn book.”

Patton gasped so much that he almost fell off his seat, _despite_ the fact that he had a seatbelt on. “Language!” he said, loud enough to attract more than a few dirty gazes from other passengers.

“Oops. Also, Logan, you were right.”

“As I thought. Or knew. Whichever.”

“Okay, but what if I accidentally have a panic attack in front of Roman and he freaks out? Do you think that he’d hate me then? What are the chances of me having a panic attack?”

Someone a few rows behind them hissed, “Shut up!” Virgil blushed, and they all fell silent, short of a few stray giggles from Patton.

Their plane landed four more reasons to worry, sixteen annoyed huffs, five annoyed passengers, and six apologies later.

"Okay, but it seems like I have to say it: I'm still worried, you know. And maybe I'll just stay on the plane until they leave for somewhere else. Like, China, maybe."

And no less of a worried Virgil, _apparently_.

"Oh, don't be _ridiculous_ ," Logan said, pulling his carry-on bag out from under the seat in front of him as he waited for an opportunity to get off the plane. "The flight attendants would kick you off. Probably use physical force, if necessary. Also, less importantly, this plane...company...thing...doesn't offer international travel."

"What I believe Logan was _trying_ to say, Virgil," Patton interrupted, giving Logan a firm glare, "was that you'll be _fine_ , and yes, you're coming with us. I'm sure we'll see Joan and Talyn just as soon as we step off this plane."

"Speaking of," Logan said, and went to grab their luggage from above them. "And Patton, don't lie to Virgil."

Ignoring Virgil's stressed "Joan and Talyn _aren't_ going to be out there waiting for us?!" Logan continued speaking.

"You step off the plane onto a..." Logan fumbled for words, handing Patton and Virgil their bags as he thought. "...off the plane onto a hallway of sorts, which leads you to the airport. I'm sure that they don't allow people to go wandering willy-nilly in those hallways, so we won't find Joan and Talyn as soon as we get off. They're probably out in the lobby waiting for us, though."

Virgil smacked Logan on the head with his bag. "Willy-nilly," he repeated mockingly. "I'm so much better and smarter and _greater_ than everyone else. Blah, blah, blah. Also I like to take everything so much more _literal_ than I have to to upset my brother. _Dick_."

Multiple passengers loudly shushed him, horrified at his vulgar language. Virgil glared at them all, not very much caring what they thought at that particular moment.

He turned back to Logan and hissed in a lower tone, "You knew what Patton meant; you just wanted to upset me!"

Logan stared at him with an impassive expression, before cracking the smallest of smiles. "Maybe."

"Dick," Virgil repeated, and shoved him so he would start heading down the plane aisle, harder than anyone with good intentions would. "I wish Mom and Dad were here."

"Only because then I wouldn't bug you as much. You're fine without Dad censoring your music the entire trip; you know _Thomas_ likes your music."

"Or at least he pretends he does," Virgil said darkly. Patton drowned that out with a chipper, "And your music doesn't even have curse words in it!"

"Guys, try and keep your talking to separate paragraphs. It's confusing for the readers," Logan said, waving a hand at them as they walked down the aisle. Virgil glared at his back.

"Oh, yeah," Patton said, giving a little skip.

"I'd almost forgotten they were there. I'm just glad that they didn't start reading at the beginning of the plane ride, because _that_ was a disaster."

"Do you think they've had a POV from Thomas or his kid yet? Do you think we can somehow read that?"

"Um, no, that'd be a violation of privacy, considering they actually exist in our 'world,' so to speak."

"Aww, but it'd be fun..."

" _No_ , Patton."

"Do you think they've gotten bored of all this dialogue?"

"Idk."

"YOU DON'T SAY IDK IN REAL LIFE OH MY GOD PATTON." Logan turns to look at you. "For you readers who likely thought that the author didn't want to write out 'I don't know,' _nope_. Patton just sounded out idk in real life, and I can die now."

Virgil looks at you like he's in _The Office_ and you're the camera. "Enough with breaking the fourth wall already. I think we're bound for a POV change. I can almost feel myself becoming more myself."

_"Are you implying that we aren't ourselves when someone is writing us?!"_

"Idk. Also, kiddos"--("They're probably older than you, Patton. You're like, a teenager.")--"don't forget to drink water and eat, and maybe take a shower if you need one. Do your gosh diddly darn homework, and try not to die......."

Your vision starts to fade out. You strain your eyes to see, but beyond the blankness you can only find natural light spilling into a room. It stains everything with a warm, comforting hue. There’s only barely flickers of movement, splashes of red and blues. If you try hard enough, you can hear a murmur of noise, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s from this scene or the previous.

Suddenly, everything's quiet.

"Patton?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think they're here anymore."

\-----

Roman watched the clock, head in his hands, lying on his stomach. “Tick, tock, tick, tock,” he whispered, swinging his legs in time with the seconds. A rose had twisted itself into his lungs, and it was an endless struggle to keep on breathing. It wasn’t a panic attack, more like a... long-suffering bout of worry.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock--”

“Roman, we don’t have time for you to reenact _Frozen_ scenes. Maybe some other time. Joan and Talyn are going to be here with your cousins in, like, half an hour, and do you really want them to see you in your Iron Man pajamas?”

Roman sagged to the floor with a sigh His elbows itched from the carpet, red lines criss-crossing them. Somehow, he always forgot that happened.

“Fine,” he said, and slowly got up. His pajamas were really, _really_ comfortable, now that he thought about it, but he only seemed to notice right when he was about to change. He wasn’t about to let his……quote unquote, “cousins” see his pajamas though.

“So you’re sure I have to meet them?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow, as if thinking, _Still on that, huh?_ “Er, yes. Nearly sure, at any rate.”

“Okayyy.” Roman began to head downstairs, hesitating with a hand on the banister. “Do I have to let them see my room?”

Thomas laughed, and walked to the kitchen. His footsteps were really loud from the floor beneath. Roman wondered if Thomas was going to make lunch. It probably wouldn’t be a good thing if he did; he _sucked_ at cooking.

“It’s the Disney posters, isn’t it?” Thomas asked, loud enough to make Roman glare at the ceiling as if that would make him shut up. They weren’t _that_ far apart, and he didn’t want it proclaimed to the entire world. He threw open his clothes drawer.

“So what if it is the Disney posters?” he said, searching for a pair of panhts without really looking, just like the author wasn;t really lookong at jer keyboard while typing this sentecne. (Eh, it turned out better than I hoped.)

“You do realize that Patton watches My Little Pony?” Thomas said. “And that Virgil likes My Chemical Romance, and Logan would actually kill for a good Star Wars fanfiction? You’ll be fine. Virgil likes Disney too. So do the others, I think. Though Logan prefers Pixar.”

“Logan prefers _what_?!” Roman yanked on a random pair of pants and threw on a shirt, dashing up the stairs just so he could give Thomas a horrified look. Sometimes things must be sacrificed for the sake of drama. Like… why the heck had he decided to grab _this_ shirt? “You don’t--you can’t just do that! That’s like, illegal or something!”

Thomas frowned at him, and got out mayonnaise and mustard to go with the cheese and meat already laying on the kitchen counter. Roman wondered if he knew that he needed bread to go with those.

“I mean, I don’t know if he enjoys watching movies that much, but I think he just likes Pixar for their _Wall-E_. Pretty sensible if you ask me.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, Roman. At least tell me you won’t hate him when he comes over.”

“What?! No! Do you think he’ll hate me if I like Disney? Maybe I should take my posters down while they’re over. _Thomas. Thomas._ ”

“Buddy, buddy, bud, you’ll be fine. Just chillax.”

The doorbell rang.

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, _that was not half an hour._ ”

Thomas shook his head and sighed. "I'm going to let them in. You're going to sit here until you chill out. Or would you rather stay in your room until lunch?"

"Going to my room," Roman replied immediately, and bolted down the stairs. "Feel free not to call me up for lunch."

“Oh God,” Thomas said, pressing his finger to his temple as something crashed to the floor, followed by a surprised yelp. “This is going to be a disaster, isn’t it?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Patton was fast asleep in the car only forty minutes after arriving in Colorado. It was only eight in the evening, but then again, Logan supposed sitting in a plane for two plus hours doing nothing beside listening to Virgil worry really was tiring.

Speaking of the absolute nuisance, Virgil was staring absently out the window at the blurring trees and the occasional deer--at least Logan _hoped_ those were deer--outside.

Joan and Talyn were silent in the front. They had appeared in the airport lobby, just as he’d predicted, and at the beginning of the car ride had kept up a casual conversation. Virgil hadn’t been much for talking to them, pulling his headphones on as soon as he caught sight of the large swarm of people in the airport. He had only offered Joan a small salute and Talyn a fist bump, then lost himself to thought.

Patton had, at first, happily carried the conversation, and whenever the flow lessened, he would babble on about anything from why their parents hadn’t been able to come with them to why the Cutie Mark Crusaders were his favorite _My Little Pony_ characters. As he had drifted off though, so had the chatter. Neither Logan nor Joan nor Talyn were good at socialization (and Virgil’s absolute lack of trying spoke for itself), and they were all left to the silence, unfortunately.

It wasn’t that Logan was impartial to the occasional quiet. He was just...kind of bored. Only a little. His phone was dead and Virgil was ignoring him, and he had a terrible headache that refused to let him wander off to thought for more than seconds at a time.

“Logan.”

Virgil’s voice was strained and oddly calm; Logan didn’t like that one bit. When he turned to look at Virgil, he was sitting upright, stiff as a board. Hands resting against his stomach, he looked like he was taking very deliberate, long breaths.

“Are you...okay?” Logan asked. “You’re not having a panic attack, are you?”

"Oh, yeah, perfectly fine. Not to be panicking on main, but I can't really breathe. But, you know. It just be like that sometimes."

"No, I do _not_ know."

“Do you need me to pull over?” Joan asked from the front seat, their eyes rapidly flickering to Virgil from the rearview mirror. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Logan _hated_ not knowing. “Virgil, what’s _wrong_?”

“I can’t _breathe_ , Logan. I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I don’t know why, I just can’t breathe. Logan, Logan, _please_.”

Logan’s eyes were wide. He reached a hand out for Virgil, only to stop and glance down at Patton. Making an executive decision, he shook him awake quickly.

“Whaa?” Patton swatted at him so that he could go back to sleep, but Logan persisted.

“Patton, wake the frick up, Virgil can’t breathe and we don’t know why,” he hissed.

Patton jolted up so fast that he almost banged Logan in the head. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, Virgil don't know, honestly I don't even know if the author does," Logan replied.

**Excuse you, I'm not just going to write something _random_. I know _exactly_ why Virgil can't breathe. And it's _not_ a panic attack.**

"Do not," Patton said, staring at me intensely. A tinge of panic resides in his tone.

**Do too! I'm not _that_ bad of a writer.**

"Don't," Patton replies. He ignores Logan, who is giving him an odd look, and Joan, who is _seriously_ debating whether to pull over.

**Do!**

"Don't."

**Do.**

"Prove it." Patton folds his arms and waits.

**Well, I mean, he's having an asthma attack, but--**

"Where’s his inhaler?” Patton interrupted, scrambling around in his bag for the spare. When he came up empty-handed, he began rooting around in Virgil’s. When he found it, he handed it to Virgil.

**I feel used, and the weird thing is is that I'm the one who's writing this. Do any of you understand how weird this is for me?**

“Uhhh…” Logan stared blankly at Patton, wondering who the heck he was talking to. "Are you alright?"

“Just spiffy. Virgil, you doing better?”

Virgil shrugged, letting his head fall between his legs. The inhaler hung limp in his hands. Patton hummed sympathetically and rubbed his back. Logan and Patton had gotten the glasses, and Virgil got asthma, apparently.

“What a change of tone,” was what Virgil said when he finally spoke. “And here we were, only a minute ago, joking about...something...on the plane.”

“Actually, it’s been like, an hour,” Talyn said. “We’re eleven minutes away from Thomas’ place.”

“No, it’s been like a few minutes because the author did a summary type thing that probably only took a couple minutes to read at the beginning of the chapter.”

“Riiiight. Okay, then.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow and looked at you like he was on _The Office_. Logan rolled his eyes at him. Ridiculous, really.

“‘Ridiculous, really,’” Virgil mocked. He still looked like he was having trouble breathing; rather than breathing through his nose, he was sucking in air from his mouth. He was probably doing better, though.

Logan glared at him, but the angry expression vanished as quickly as it came. “Wait, how would you even know that I thought that?”

“Because we’re self-aware, _duh_.” Virgil rolled his eyes. “Wait, but--yeah, I actually have no idea. I just kind of knew??”

“Whose POV is it? If it’s Virgil’s, that might make sense. You know how books go ‘x character looked like he was thinking x,’ or ‘x character gave him a look that meant x.’ Maybe it’s like that?” Patton shrugged, looking between them.

“Yeah…” Logan drifted off. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Virgil agreed, looking equally uncertain. “But I mean, I don’t know…”

“I forgot how weird you three were,” Joan said from the front. “I mean, okay, I might be just as weird, but we are _not_ in a story. If anything, it’d be one of Thomas’ YouTube videos.”

“I thought his channel never really kicked off?”

Virgil gave Patton a weird look, then leaned closer to you, cupping his hand to whisper, “I think this is some sort of AU. I’m not really sure who/what we _really_ are, but we’re not original fiction, are we?” It was such a loud whisper that everyone could hear it.

“Okay, _that_ is a creepy thought,” Logan said. “That we’re, like--excuse the improper grammar--a badly-written copy of the originals, like messed up clones. What if we aren’t actually kids, or we’re not triplets, or what if we actually knew Rome in the original story? What if there’s an exact same version of this, but instead me or Patton or Virgil was the one adopted by Thomas? How weird would that be? Do I actually need glasses, or was that a weird headcanon forced on me? What if we’re a crossover and we never originally knew each other at all? _Wat if are athor dosn’t know how to spel or use grammor properly, and so she--he? They?--uses ‘are’ rather then the corect form of ‘our,’ and ‘then’ rather then ‘than’?_ ”

Everyone stared at Logan, before Virgil reached over Patton to awkwardly pat him on the back.

“Uh, I think we’re original. We’ll, uh, be fine.”

Virgil gives you a wide-eyed look. _We’re not original, are we?_ he mouths, hoping that the same rule that let him know that Logan thought ‘Ridiculous, really’ doesn’t apply to him. Patton just shrugs at you.

“ _Okayyy_ ,” Talyn said. “Well, enough with the existential crisises, because we’re here.”

“It’s actually ‘crises.’ ‘Crises’ is the plural form of ‘crisis.’ I bet the author ignored the obvious red, wavy lines because _obviously_ they were right, right? Ohmygosh, our author really _is_ bad at speeling and grammat.”

“Then how come _you_ know the correct...grammar thing? The author must have written you saying that,” Patton pointed out, but Logan just groaned and raced out of the car. Finding a convenient pile of snow, he yeeted himself into it, hands covering his ears.

_I hate my life,_ Logan thought.

“Speeling,” Virgil repeated flatly, ignoring them. “Grammat.” He gives me a look and mouths the words again before shaking his head and getting out of the car.

“Virgil, are you going to get your stuff?” Patton asked, poking him in the shoulder. “I mean, Joan and Talyn are staying until like, seven, but you might need your inhaler again. Maybe just take your inhaler inside, just in case.”

Virgil stared at him blankly. “Speeling,” he said again, half-giggling, but reached into the car and got his inhaler. Patton smiled and laughed too, but mostly just because Virgil was happy and that made _him_ happy.

They followed Talyn and Joan up the driveway, which was a little longer than normal ones. By longer, that means that the driveway was like, sixty feet, and by the time they got to the house Virgil was scowling again and wondering why they hadn’t just driven all the way up. Did they know how hard it was to walk in four inches of snow?

Well, not that hard, but the snow soaked his shoes and he was shivering. It was uncomfortable, and completely avoidable, _if_ Joan had driven up the driveway.

To be honest, Thomas’ house was bigger than he had expected. There was a shed, which was probably as big as two of Virgil’s room back home, and the house itself had three doors into the house, from what he could see. There were stairs--stairs? _Stairs?!_ \--up to the--second, first? Was the floor with the garage the first floor or the basement? What the heck did Thomas _do_ for a living?

“So...which door do we go through? There’s like, two,” Patton said.

“The one up the stairs is _technically_ the front door, but we all agree that all those stairs are tiring to walk up, so we use what we call ‘the side door,’ but is really like a second front door that leads to a different place and is less flashy.” Joan paused and looked around. “Where did Logan go?”

Virgil waved his hands dismissively. “Speeling. Wait no, I mean, I think we left him back in a snowdrift somewhere, but don’t worry, he’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.” Joan didn’t look convinced, but they led them to the “side door” and just walked right into the house. Without knocking. The heck, man? The heck.

Virgil followed Joan and Talyn inside, but Patton hesitated, looking around. “Logan?” he called, crossing his arms and shivering.

“I’m right here, Patton. Chill out. Metaphorically speaking. You look plenty cold already.”

Patton turned to his right and jumped backward, like a cat being startled by a cucumber. Logan was standing right beside him, like...you know he had to do it to ’em.

“Jeez, you scared me. How’d you get here?”

“Oh, I’ve been here the entire time.” Logan headed inside, gesturing for Patton to follow him. “I’m sure the author just forgot to write me in.”

Inside, there was a TV and a few couches, but no Joan or Talyn or Virgil, and for that matter, no Thomas or Roman.

"I *think* they went upstairs...?" Patton said.

"Well, let us assume that they are not in one of these room and go upstairs. It's not like it's the end of the world if they end up being down here."

"Okay, fair point. Fair point."

They headed upstairs, Patton trailing behind Logan, who, to be sure, was very good at looking like he was not nervous that everyone would be downstairs at all.

The babble of voices they caught heading upstairs alleviated his worries. Patton bounced past him, taking two or three steps at a time.

“Thomas!” he exclaimed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is just me gradually testing the boundaries of weird :P
> 
> Hope it didn’t weird you out too much, though. The next chapter may not be out for a while—like a couple months, or a year if I’m lazy—so I hope you’re not too attached.

**Author's Note:**

> colorado was the first place i thought of, okay?
> 
> tell me how i did, dont tell me how i did, i don’t really care either way. 
> 
>  
> 
> also there will be another chapter......at some point. maybe.


End file.
